Petrified Forest National Park

Petrified Forest National Park

250 million years ago, during the Triassic, the land was lush with forests and rivers. It was before the age of dinosaurs – it was the time of the amphibians. As time inevitable brought down the large trees they fell in the muddy swamps and rivers. Slowly a process called Permineralization took place where the silica rich waters slowly and inexorably replaced the structured fibers and petrified the wood. What was left behind were pseudomorphs, a copy of what once lived. The different minerals mixed in with the silica gave birth to the vibrant colors. Some trapped within the trunks, others free to color the painted desert. It is a panoramic canvas painted by nature.

Today these forests lay strewn about. You have to run your hands through the desiccated silt and mud to imagine what the land was like. It is a giant heat trap radiating the hot Arizona sun as clouds drift by withholding what little moisture they have. What water reaches the ground, is repelled by the silt and clay and rapidly erodes the landscape, forming rills, then canyons. Where rock exist, some of them are decorated with petroglyphs, and some protect the underlying soil to form hoodoos before rolling down the slopes to gather in the dry stream beds.